Friday, August 12, 2016

Badass Teachers Association: What Do We Do Now?

Many of us looking for a change in our two party democratic system are left with hard feelings after the recent Republican and Democratic Conventions. Especially those of us that were feeling the Bern!

But now is the time to grab the spirit of the movement that was started and use the momentum that was built to create the change that we want to see. We can do this with small actions in our own communities. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our children.

As schools are beginning again (Hello Tennessee!) or getting ready to start (Are we really in August already?) one step that we can do to prepare is to make sure that we have a schedule of our School Board meetings already added to our busy calendars. This will prevent us from making the excuse “Oh, I already have something I need to do that night.” Make no mistake, THIS is what you need to do that night. Attend a school board meeting, whether it is in the district that you work in, or it is in the district where your children attend school; make sure that you are aware and involved.

Our Washington BATs have compiled a great file of different conversation starters to get the School Board members to really start thinking about the decisions they are making for the schools and how these decisions are affecting the students.

List of topics

1 – Early Childhood

2 – Poverty

3 – Text Levels

4 – Standardized Testing

5 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 1

6 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 2

7 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 3

8 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 4

9 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 5

10 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 6

Wouldn't it be great to start a reading group with the members of the board, a few teachers, administrators, and parents? Create a challenge to everyone to make a commitment to having some real conversations!